Researchers from 11 countries recently announced the formation of the Global Musa (Banana) Genomic Consortium to sequences the 500 to 600 million genes that comprise the banana genome. When finished, the banana would become only the third plant species to have its entire genome sequenced, joining rice and the weed Arabidopsis thaliana.
According to The BBC, the banana is the fourth most important plant source of food in the developing world, constituting up to a quarter of the calories consumed by people in some parts of Africa (though the species of banana there is more potato-like than the sweet Cavendish version popular in Western industrialized nations).
Unfortunately the banana is increasingly vulnerable to disease, with new strains of a fungus called Black Sigatoka presenting a severe threat to banana yields — in some parts of the world, fungus attacks can claim 50 percent of the crop, while combating it requires expensive chemicals which few developing world farmers can afford.
Unlike other food crops, ancient farmers cultivated sterile banana crops so, as banana expert Emile Frison told The BBC, “Cultivated bananas have, therefore, been at a near evolutionary standstill for thousands of years and lack the genetic diversity need to fight off disease.”
And therefore providing a perfect opportunity to use genetic modification techniques to improve the plant.
Source:
Banana targeted by code crackers. the BBC, July 19, 2001.